Fiendhunter Bolts

Fiendhunter Bolts is a 2,650 gold legendary item in League of Legends for crit champions who lean on their ultimate: 45% Attack Speed, 25% Critical Strike Chance and 4% Move Speed in patch 26.21. It adds 30 Ultimate Ability Haste, and after each ultimate your next 3 basic attacks become guaranteed critical strikes at reduced crit damage.

What do Night Vigil and Opening Barrage do?

Night Vigil is the simple one. It grants 30 Ability Haste that only touches your ultimate, so R comes back sooner and your basic abilities stay exactly where they were.

Opening Barrage is where the item earns its slot. Cast your ultimate and the next 3 basic attacks gain 50% Attack Speed and critically strike for 80% of your normal crit damage, with 8 seconds to use them. An attack that would have crit anyway deals 15% bonus true damage instead.

Does the lower crit damage hurt? A little. Forced crits land softer than natural ones, and that’s exactly why the true damage clause exists: once your other items push crit chance high enough that those empowered attacks would crit on their own, the passive switches to paying you in true damage rather than wasting the proc. Put simply, every ultimate turns into a short, guaranteed burst of crits, even in the first item or two when your crit chance is still low.

Is Fiendhunter Bolts worth the gold?

On stats alone, it falls short. The three stats add up to 2,425 gold against a 2,650 gold price, which works out to 92% gold efficiency.

The breakdown uses basic items from the same patch as a price list. 45% Attack Speed at 25 gold per percent comes to 1,125 gold, 25% crit chance at 40 gold per percent comes to 1,000, and 4% Move Speed at 75 gold per percent adds 300. The catch is that neither passive shows up in that sum, and Ultimate Ability Haste has no basic item to price it against (honestly, it’s the stat this item is really selling). Think of the 225 gold gap as what you pay for Night Vigil and Opening Barrage, and the price looks a lot fairer.

What does the build path look like?

Two parts: Zeal (1,200 gold) and Scout’s Slingshot (600 gold), plus 850 gold to put them together. Zeal already carries all three of the finished item’s stat types, so it’s the stronger first buy when you can afford it; the Slingshot is the cheap pickup for a short back (and its own Bullseye passive gives a little poke in lane while you save up).

Nothing builds out of it, so once it’s done that slot is settled for the rest of the game.

How has the item changed since release?

Barely, so far. Riot’s data first lists it in patch 26.1, which makes it one of the newer items in the shop, and the record since then has one entry:

• Patch 26.2: Attack Speed 40% → 45%, effect text changed.

An Attack Speed bump one patch after launch, together with reworded passive text, usually means the first version came out a bit weak. Will there be more changes? Nobody outside Riot can say, though for what it’s worth the history table above refreshes itself every patch, and the LoL items database holds the same record for every other crit item.

Who should buy Fiendhunter Bolts?

Crit champions whose ultimate is short enough, or central enough to their kit, that they press it in every fight. The Ultimate Haste then feeds the passive: more ultimates means more Opening Barrage windows, which means more guaranteed crits per fight.

Champions with a long, once-a-teamfight ultimate get less out of it. For them, Infinity Edge usually does more per gold, because its value sits on every attack instead of waiting for one button, and Berserker’s Greaves cover the early Attack Speed either way (boots come first on most crit builds anyway). The LoL champion guides show which picks fit, but look, the quickest test is to count how often you cast R in an average fight: once, and the passive is a nice extra; several times, and that passive is the whole reason to build Fiendhunter Bolts.

FAQ

How much does Fiendhunter Bolts cost?

2,650 gold in patch 26.21, including a 850 gold combine cost. It sells back for 1,855 gold.

What does Opening Barrage do?

After you cast your ultimate, your next 3 basic attacks gain 50% Attack Speed and critically strike for 80% of normal crit damage, for 8 seconds. Attacks that would already crit deal 15% bonus true damage instead.

How much Ultimate Ability Haste does it give?

30, from the Night Vigil passive. It applies to your ultimate only.

Is it gold efficient?

Its stats are worth 2,425 gold, or 92% of the price. Night Vigil and Opening Barrage come on top of that.

What does it build from?

Zeal and Scout’s Slingshot. It does not build into any other item.